Francine's Pilfered Paper
Mr. Ratburn assigns reports for his class over Thanksgiving. Francine, however, merely copies and pastes from a website to get done early.
- The B Grade: Mr. Ratburn initially gives Francine's paper an A- due to some misinformation. After she confesses and turns in a new paper, he gives her a B, which she is pleased with because it's her B.
- Expy: On Thanksgiving, Mr. Ratburn is watching a documentary series from Ben Kurns about dentistry.
- Guilt-Induced Nightmare: Francine dreams herself as a successful author selling cookbooks... with an army of zombified drones producing her work by constantly copying and pasting information from websites. Things only get worse when the original author of the article shows up to expose her scam.
- I Broke a Nail: During a montage of the kids working during the break, Muffy briefly pauses to find that she broke a nail.
- Line-of-Sight Name: When Mr. Ratburn asks what her reference source was, Francine makes up the title "22 Secret Pilgrim Recipes" based on the contents of his bookshelf.
- Obliviously Evil: Well, "evil" is stretching it, but Francine's plagiarism is completely innocent: she genuinely doesn't know that copying an entire essay is wrong and thinks that doing so is simply a great time-saving trick. Once Catherine explains the scope of what she's done, Francine is immediately apologetic and worried.
- Plagiarism in Fiction: The theme of the episode. Francine learns what plagiarism is and what its potential consequences are when her sister explains it to her.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: After Francine confesses that she accidentally plagiarized her paper, Mr. Ratburn gently explains how it robs the author of credit and the student of actually learning something. She then turns in another version of her report, to which he says it only matters that it's hers.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: Francine's plagiarism is clearly stated to be wrong, but Mr. Ratburn is also completely understanding about the situation, since she didn't actually know what she was doing and would not have plagiarized had she realized. He thus agrees to fairly grade Francine's redone report, accepting the extra work as a fair punishment, after offering a concise definition of plagiarism.
Buster Gets Real
Arthur is surprised to learn that Buster no longer watches Bionic Bunny because he finds a reality show called Top Supermarket Clerk to be more true to life.
- Plug the Volcano: Arthur manages to convince Buster to go see a Bionic Bunny move. In the movie, Bionic Bunny plugs a volcano with a comet. Buster finds it inaccurate.
- TV Head Robot: An Imagine Spot shows Arthur and Bionic Bunny having to get past a guard with a television head as they infiltrate a television studio.
